Infatuation
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: You could have been me if history had been different, I might have been you.


Title: Infatuation  
Author: MissAnnThropic  
Spoilers: Into the Lion's Den: Lambs to the Slaughter  
Summary: You could have been me if history had been different, I might have been you.  
Disclaimer: None of it's mine. I'm just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching taped episodes of her favorite shows :(

* * *

Almost two cycles seeking him out, diving into the darkest crevices of this untamed chunk of space set upon the image of his face like a Vocarian blood tracker on the scent. He has been a scent in the winds upon my brain, tormenting me with the need to be closer, always closer, until he was mine. He and the glorious secrets buried inside his brain. A true gift, the carrier of the most wondrous gateways to knowledge able to be confined. All I have hungered for my entire life encased in a body that can be held, a vessel that I can overtake and wield by force. The science I cannot grab and hold, but that creature... him I can touch and demand do my bidding. He was the physical creation of every elusive whim I have struggled to grasp, and I had to have him.

That was the seed of John Crichton that I dug my claws into and would not let go. He was magnificent, a weapon waiting to be unlocked, a gift indeed. He could give me everything I have ever desired, and in doing so he became that one item I was driven to obtain. At the expense of all else, I had to possess John Crichton.

He has infiltrated every bit of my being... such is the nature of such a singular goal. I dreamed and longed for nothing else than to have him again, bristled in anger at having lost him once. Slipped through my fingers, a star I could not hold, a star with the power of the ages inside its center that I have to crack. A star, but a mere alien. Weak, deficient. Words of others, but not mine.

He is alien, unlike them, so it was expected that they would tell themselves he was nothing but faults. They longed to believe he was inferior, told themselves he was until they did believe it. They didn't want to see him the way I did... I have no species pride to uphold in my eyes, I don't revile an outsider species as they do because I cannot claim one of my own. I didn't have loyalties to disregard or betray when I considered him. His body may be frail, his exterior weak, but his mind is anything but, and it is his mind I know best of all. It is his mind I cherish for the treasures it holds.

To track your prey, to chase a dream, you must know the minds of those you pursue and the fancies you behold. You can only hope to anticipate another's moves when you know how they think, how they react before rational thought takes hold of actions. Their instincts, their natural responses in all conditions. I have studied Crichton long and hard, immersed myself in a fragile alien being, and I at times feel as though I know him as well as I know myself. As well as I have ever known myself, for how many can truly say they know themselves entirely?

I can, and so can John. He is like me... he has been asked to survive through trials his species was not designed to undergo. He's been pushed to his limits and asked to look at what dark shadow lays beyond it. We've both stared into those shadows, and we're brothers for it. Closer than brothers, vastly different than friends... we are the infestation of the other.

He's under my skin, in my thoughts, and I know I inhabit his. We both go through every day with awareness of the other a constant companion. I dare say Crichton knows me as well as I understand him. Not even his shipmates, not even my closest associates, can comprehend us as we unravel each other.

I have spent cycles trailing him, delving into him, and in his attempts to stay one step ahead of my pursuit he's likewise pursued me. We are both the hunter and the prey.

He is near now as the hunter, for all the posturing I make I know this. The quarry has turned and faced his attacker, and I relent. Crichton has me, not I him, but it is all the same.

He sent his shipmates to meet with me to discuss the terms. John is amazing, the way he heralds loyalty to him without even trying. I don't think he realizes his talent, surely his comrades know only of this that he is worth fighting for, and he has me utterly. John Crichton is infinitely important to me, my work, and I'll not let anything damage his thinking. I've come to know it too well to allow it to be altered. It is precious, singularly unique in all the galaxy, even if only I understand truly how much so.

He's come to me, willing. I knew he would, we were inescapable to each other from his first session in the Aurora Chair. My neural chip should have brought him home sooner, but I am patient and that has reaped me reward once again. Regardless of the circles we've run to come to this, we have reached it nonetheless, our circles always a contracting spiral.

I walk the corridors of the command carrier I pried from Crais's foolish hands. He chased a fever just as I do, but his was too rushed and too useless. Crichton's death would accomplish little for anyone but him, while his life means such a great deal. Crais lacked foresight, focus, but I've cultivated these. John has too. He fights his destiny, his gift, but I see the language of wormhole technology straining against their holds in his eyes. Even while part of him resists, he burns to know them, too. I want only to free that part of him so trapped, release him to his passions, let him see what he can accomplish in the right environment, and be there to see it happen. I want to take the offerings bequeathed to corporeal dwellers that Crichton can deliver. It will be beautiful.

I stop at his assigned quarters, knowing another would be surprised that he did not have his friends from Moya about him, but I understand why he does not. He is alone in this knowledge he possesses, a black hole of incredible power that the others are not strong enough to venture near. If they touched this science, they would fall to his event horizon and be lost. What he holds is too powerful, his buried capacity to comprehend it far beyond the feeble shipmates who would dare to consider him inferior.

You are so much more than them, John Crichton, and the nearest I have ever found to an equal to myself.

He keeps himself alone, holds his friends at bay, because he knows what he is. He's too much of a lot of things, and he protects his friends from it. You need not keep me outside your lines, John Crichton, I can withstand the awesome power that sucks the very light from your surroundings. You are the only one, ever, that I have not known without a doubt would similarly fall into the emptiness of my own quantum singularity.

I enter your quarters, unchanged from the solar day they were given to you, because there is so little of the physical that besets you. The greatest worlds you know you hold within you, and the frivolities of the outside galaxy pale to what your mind's eye sees. Show me those wonders, Crichton, because this life is just as perfunctory to me.

You are unmoving on the bed but for the whisper of your breath. You sleep soundly just to spite me, to show me I have not won over you. You've ceased to let me torment your sleep, and I have since stopped believing I can break you. You are different, and I have had to reassess my ways in dealing with you. For the weakness in your body, you would fall and fold into your own darkness, consume yourself from the inside out, before you let me break you. I no longer want to, you are too precious as you are for me to risk trying.

I move closer and watch you. How you have bewitched me, an alien from a place that I cannot begin to know, coming from a life I cannot begin to understand. Your mental flavor is exotic to me, and it intrigues me. Your face is Sebacean, something so familiar, but beneath the flesh is a mind that has changed me to learn it. So few have managed to so completely affect me, and you have done so while great distances away. Your power is that great, human, and not even you know it. So naive and formidable at once, when you harness the force you have you will be strong. You will be me.

I sit on the edge of the bed next to you, sensitive to your body temperature. You run hot compared to a Sebacean, just as I do. They would say we both have magma running through our veins, how wicked is the irony that you are built for it. You burn as I do, but there is not madness for you in it. Without effort, you are much better than me for that.

I covet your hands. The science that consumes us is in the language of mathematics, quantifiable physics. I don't need to know your native language to understand numerics, and it will be those hands that deliver that most treasured secret to me. Wormholes will only be as elegant as your hands are dexterous, and I can't sleep for the thought of what will be borne of your mind.

Your body is a conundrum. It is your shepherd, your haven (and therein mine), and yet it is so vulnerable... as much as your mind is complex. I could with little effort crush your bones, crumble you into so much slag, but yet I must be gentle for the preservation of your brain, mind and body inextricably bound into the same fate. Your fragility of form terrifies me, for I would have something so priceless housed in a much stronger casing than you inhabit.

I have to protect you, and it will be a demanding challenge, for you are built like a Sarmek Spritefly... your colors are so brilliant, hues cast in ranges of the spectrum most beings cannot see, but one touch by an unkind hand will shatter your wings and crush your lungs.

Softly, I reach out and lay my hand atop your chest. Brittle ribs move under my gloved hand, air passes almost uncertainly into your lungs, your heart beats like nothing more than a tenacious flutter. All of you would suggest such weakness, but never have I truly encountered a creature so strong. You are more than you know, John Crichton, and more than any of your comrades come close to understanding. I know your glory, it is the same as mine. I am drawn to you as one who could understand.

You stir under my touch, which I do not withdraw, and you calmly open your eyes and look right at me. You want to hate me, some measure of you does, but the hatred is not complete. It cannot be. We have been one another too long, you have fought to understand me to the point where you cannot hate me. You know me, and what you know so well you cannot truly hate. You want me dead, you'd like to be the one to do it, but the hate will never be absolute. You've become me too much for that.

It is not hate I feel for you, even after all the frustration and fury you've put me through. You've burned me and I kept coming back. We were both drawn to that fire, and you lying under my hand is living proof.

Hostility billows toward me from your eyes, but I see the acceptance there, too. This is your fate, you knew for a long time we'd reach this point, and while you despise me for what I am you accept it because it is you, too. We're of a kind, John Crichton, oh yes... twisted versions of one form.

Our eyes are the same, the wormholes are lodged in our gazes like embedded starlight, and you and I both know it. You could have been me if history had been different, I might have been you. Now we are kin in some strange way, both too awesome to be contained, both alone for our singular energies. You can't hate me because you know that I am somehow like you in intensity. You want another who knows that solitude, and you will settle for an enemy if you have to.

I am only your enemy because you wish us to be. I forged those relations in the Gammak Base, but I could not have predicted the kindred spirit I would find in such an inexplicable alien. I would welcome you now as an ally, but you want us to remain apart in the conventions of adversaries. However you want to play this, John, because it is a game. We have taken turns making the rules, and now it is your play. If you want me to be your devil, I will do that, because it is ultimately pointless what I am to you in our encounters. You are here with me, and I will not let you go. You are precious, priceless, and I have every intention of extending every reach of my power to safeguard you.

You silently force me to go with little more than the intensity that is you, and yet I know something of you wants me to stay.

Because to hate me is what you need, I move to leave your quarters and return you to your tortured respite and simmering delusions of loath for me. You'll come to me soon enough, because I am repeatedly drawn to you. We are polarities, the two of us, and time swings us within each other's range again and again. You possess me, John Crichton, and never have I felt more whole or understood.

END


End file.
